Welcome to step seven, being present. So the interview starts Your mind is rushing around in circles and your brain is taking in all these new surroundings. It's trying to assess the people in front of you and thinking ahead of what's next to come. At this point the interviewers will open the interview. Now I haven't taught them so I don't know which way they'll go and what they will say. However, what I can teach you is a simple trick, and that is to start actively listening to them.

The difference between listening to someone and actively listening to someone is that you will start to hear the true meaning of what is being said. You don't get distracted, you stay focused and you ignore the internal chatter that is going on in your head. And hopefully this will help you to remain calm throughout the interview. So how do we actively listen to someone? Firstly, we need to remain focused and the way in which we do that is to maintain eye contact at all times. If there is more than one person interviewing you, then you should share your eye contact between everyone in front of you.

I've experienced interviews where I was one of three interviewers and I received no eye contact, which is the same as no acknowledgement that I was even in the room. Think how this may affect the interviewers opinion of you. And other times I've seen candidates that make no eye contact with anyone in the room. And every time they're asked a question, they stare off into the distance. This generally makes people feel uneasy, and sometimes distrustful of you. You've probably heard that when people lie to you, they can't stay in the eyes.

So you don't want the interviewer is to feel that you are avoiding them and possibly not being honest in your responses. Eye contact shows that you're paying attention, that you're alert and that you are truly listening to what they're saying. Don't mind read? When I say mind read, I mean, don't think ahead of what they're saying. Let's say they're asking you about the company. But because you've researched the company, your brain tells you that you don't need to listen.

Or you start thinking about something that you read on the website. Or maybe they're going over the job description. And again, your brain is trying to think of answers to questions that they have not even asked you yet. If you were thinking, then you're not actively listening. And this can be picked up in your body language, your eye movements and what you say. Be very careful not to interrupt the interviewers when they talk or ask questions.

An interruption may not be used, simply speaking before a question has been finished. But what I've seen in the number of candidates is there Yes, yes, yes, I see. Oh, Yes, yeah, it's quick talk, okay, which looks as though you're responding before you ever heard the question. And again, this shows that you're not actively listening, the interviewers will expect you to be a little bit nervous. And from my experience, a lot of the time the interviewers are nervous themselves, as this is not something they do every day. It may also be something that they don't like to do, as it's not nice to tell someone that they're not going to get the position.

Often when a candidate leaves the room, I've seen the interviewers get quite upset when they found more than one candidate who could do the role. And then they have to make a choice about who's going to get the position or not. So if you're nervous, your brain is rushing and you're asked a question that you're not clear on. It's absolutely okay to ask them to clarify, or reword a question that you did not fully understand. As long as you don't do this after every question they ask. And finally, when answering the questions, if there is more than one interview Make sure that you share your icontact with each of the interviewers, as you respond with your answers.